Dreams and Thoughts - 1917

7 - Blaze

Plop.

A drop of water fell upon Will's head from a hole in the ceiling. He opened his eyes, his head wet from the water which had likely been dripping continuously upon his head for whatever amount of time he was asleep.

His eyes were sticky, his bones tired from the force of the fall down the stairs. His hand moved upward to feel the back of his head, which throbbed in warm pain. It bled pitch black; blood. It wasn't too much, but it hurt enough.

He had a hard time adjusting himself to the area around him not only because of the pain in the back of his head, but from the darkness of the room. The first thing he could think of was his rifle, which he reached with some difficulty by crawling himself up the stairs. 

Every bone in his body was still asleep yet his muscles moved for him to help him up to the rifle, which he had used to shoot the German soldier. He reached the top step and grabbed the weapon before standing himself up gingerly.

He had somewhere to be... there was no time for crawling around.

Will looked into the room to see the dead German soldier there. He would've lightly celebrated, yet he couldn't bear it. A poor soldier who had a family back home... he would've loved to have had that luxury.

His mother wasn't hardly his family anymore. He hadn't seen her or talked to her since 1915. When he stopped going on leave.
When he stopped deciding to go only to leave everything behind again.

The room filled with light, interrupting his thoughts. It were as if the sun was up again, only for it to go back down moments later. Then he noticed out the window that something in the town was burning so intensely that it looked like the entire town was engulfed.

Another flare dashed upward into the night sky, lighting the area around. Another sunrise. He began to walk down the steps and onto a path through the town, the light of the flare revealing the ruins of the once functional town. Anything of value there had been systematically stripped by the Germans.
The rest? Looted by stragglers.

He imagined how Pau would feel in the same situation. Scared, perhaps? She'd definitely have run at the first sight of danger, like he had told her to. She would've found a way to get to safety, also like he told her to.

And then she would've thought of him... just like he had told her to.

He was sobered from the thoughts by a gunshot in the distance firing at him.
Another sniper.

The blonde began to sprint down the pathway into the town, gunshots following his trail closely behind and desperately trying to score a kill. The sniper was desperate to score a kill... at least one. This much was certain.

Another flare hissed above and, thinking quickly, he ducked next to some rubble. A few shots rang out, landing near him on the ground, but none of them hitting. He was lucky that the sniper had run out of bullets by then.

When the blinding, bright light of the flare had died out once more, he got up and scrambled to continue running. He didn't stop... he needed to get to the river urgently. There, he'd follow it down to the new frontline by dawn and reach the Second Devons, like he had promised Blake.

The place was crawling with Germans, so he was cautious in his movements and decided to stay under the grid until he could reach the river without being caught.

He found himself in a dark alleyway, feeling safe there for a few moments as he moved through the space toward the end. The orange light of whatever was blazing had become the brightest there; he was close to it.

After he exited the alleyway, the massive fire could be seen burning with dense intensity. In front of it was the town square. A cross sat on top of a fountain, indicating what used to be of the blazing structure - a church.